I don’t care if you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a small business owner or a manager or supervisor -- you are only as good as the people around you. In other words, it’s important to surround yourself with success-oriented people.

When hiring, always try to pick future leaders. They may not be easy to recognize, but they’re crucial to an organization that wants to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Here’s a list of factors that can help you identify and develop potential leaders on your staff:

-- Collaboration. Look for employees who communicate well, delegate effectively and build strong personal relationships with their co-workers, managers and customers. They’re committed to their own personal success, of course, but they’re also dedicated to helping other people.

-- Self-determination. Entrepreneurial employees value their freedom and autonomy. They like being their own boss as much as possible, if they’re doing something they enjoy. Allow employees to make their own decisions, as long as they’re moving firmly toward your organization’s objectives.

-- Planning skills. You want employees who look beyond today’s tasks, who can focus on the long term as well as the short. They’re good at strategizing and weighing options, and at making decisions that minimize risk and maximize opportunity.

-- Curiosity. Most great ideas start with simple questions: “What if I did this? Why does that happen?” Listen to employees’ questions to spot those who are interested in solving problems and learning more about how things work.

-- Comfort with technology. Every good leader or potential leader stays on top of the tools that can mean success or failure. He or she isn’t afraid to use whatever’s available -- as long as it works.

-- Drive for action. Focus on employees who take initiative without waiting until conditions are perfect. They like to try things quickly, experiment and then move on to the next challenge. They’re also not discouraged by setbacks.

Those are traits that employees bring to the job. Now it’s up to you to help them develop the skills that will enable them to use those traits most effectively.

First and foremost, you need to be a role model. People will learn much more from your actions than from anything you say. If you want to be an effective manager, you must be comfortable knowing that your employees might be smarter or more tech-savvy than you, or have new ways of doing business. Try to remember your early career and what you did to prove yourself. Give them enough latitude to develop their own style, but be ready to offer a guiding hand when necessary.

Teach the importance of networking. Learning how to make contacts is a necessary skill for every leader. Stress the importance of both internal and external networks. I frequently preach, “If I had to name the single characteristic shared by all the truly successful people I’ve met over a lifetime, I’d say it is the ability to create and nurture a network of contacts.”

Share the value of perspective. Maintaining an even keel in good and bad times prevents the temptation to jump to rash conclusions when a challenge arises, or conversely, when you have had the biggest success of your career. Emotions have a place, but not in business decisions. As I like to say, “Make decisions with your heart and you’ll end up with heart disease.”

Insist on respect: for authority, for co-workers and for yourself. Good leaders treat people like people, not property. Successful leaders won’t stoop to doing deeds that go against their principles just to make a buck. Good leaders have standards that cannot be compromised because it would destroy their self-respect.

Remind employees constantly: Cream doesn’t rise to the top; it works its way up. There is no substitute for hard work. When employees see you working harder than they do, you are reinforcing that a dedicated work ethic is a necessary characteristic of a good leader.

Instill confidence. Give credit where it is due. Encourage employees to take charge of projects that will allow them to take appropriate risks and take responsibility for outcomes.

Make sure they understand responsibility. As writer Max DePree puts it: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. ... A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: ‘Leaders don’t inflict pain; they bear pain.’”

Mackay’s Moral: If you want to grow tomorrow’s leaders, plant seeds of wisdom today.

We all deal with disappointment in different ways. Some pout, a few get angry and others go into denial.

Repressing your feelings is a recipe for disaster. Ignoring things or holding them in only makes you feel worse. And it often magnifies the issue so that you cannot deal with it reasonably.

Getting angry isn’t any better. Remember, anger is just one letter short of danger. You risk taking your anger out on someone who doesn’t deserve it, making things worse.

Pouting -- feeling sorry for yourself -- is probably the most common response. But it’s not the best way to deal with the situation. When you dwell on the negative aspects of a disappointing situation, you are blinded to the opportunities that could be staring you in the face.

Leadership consultant Kevin Eikenberry explains: “We can become much better leaders and professionals if we can get past our internal language and live in the present moment. The present offers us opportunities to learn, opportunities to teach, opportunities to reinforce positive behaviors in others, opportunities to see our world in new ways and opportunities to enjoy our day more fully.

“Staying in pouting mode closes the door to all of these opportunities because we don’t see them -- we are too busy thinking about ourselves.”

How will you possibly reach your potential if you are busy fretting about the past? Allow me to share a little secret: Life is full of disappointments, but it’s also full of opportunity.

The first step to getting over a letdown is to let your feelings out -- appropriately. Talk to a trusted friend or write in a journal. Resist the temptation to lash out at the offender or your co-workers. Be extremely careful what you post on social media because, as you already know, the post will outlast the problem and potentially follow you indefinitely.

Next, put your worries in perspective. Was this just a blip on the radar or a life-and-death situation? Did you lose out on a promotion or lose your entire career? Was this more of a fender-bender or 50-car pile-up? Ask yourself: Will this matter a year from now, a month from now, two days from now? Few disappointments will have the kind of lasting impact that are worth allowing to fester. Carrying a grudge is a very heavy burden.

Then stop and think about the things that are going right for you. As my mother used to say, “There is always something to be grateful for.” Focus on positive thinking and see if your attitude doesn’t improve dramatically.

Step back and analyze the outcome. What did you learn from your disappointment? Would it have mattered if you had handled the situation differently? And perhaps the hardest question to ask yourself: Did I set myself up to fail? There is an important lesson in every disappointment. You can learn a lot from some self-examination.

Finally, don’t give up. Many people have surmounted enormous odds to overcome significant disappointments and have risen to the top. No matter what your life goals are, you owe it to yourself to jump over the hurdle and get back in the race. You might have to change your plans, you might adjust your thinking, you might take a different direction. But you will be open to surprising opportunities if you keep hope alive.

Over my lifetime in business, I’ve had plenty of disappointments. It would have been easier to throw in the towel on several different occasions. But I could not imagine what would happen to me if I let problems dictate my future. I am in charge of my fate, not some outside influences.

You may not be able to prevent disappointment, but you can control your response to it.

Mackay’s Moral: Disappointment might knock you down, but don’t let it knock you out.

Thomas Edison once visited Luther Burbank, the famed horticulturist, who invited every guest who visited his home to sign the guest book. Each line in the book had a space for the guest's name, address and special interests. When Edison signed the book, in the space marked “Interested in,” Edison wrote: “Everything!”

Edison, who was awarded more than 1,000 patents, was a prime example of curiosity. He said, “The ideas I use are mostly the ideas of other people who don’t develop them themselves.”

That was an understatement. In his lifetime, Edison invented the incandescent light, the phonograph, the hideaway bed, wax paper, underground electrical wires, an electric railway car, the light socket and light switch, a method for making synthetic rubber from goldenrod plants and the motion picture camera. He also founded the first electric company.

Edison refused to let his curiosity be stifled. He was curious about everything.

“Ideas are somewhat like babies,” said the late management guru Peter Drucker. “They are born small, immature and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. The creative manager asks, ‘What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is feasible, that is an opportunity for us?’”

I like that thinking. It validates all my little scraps of paper and two-word dictations, among them my best ideas in infant form. Developing them and watching them grow, seeing where they go from a little seed -- and seeing what other bright ideas grow right along with them -- that’s what gets my creative juices flowing.

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity,” goes an old saying. It's pure genius, in my opinion.

Curiosity is a hunger to explore and a delight in discovery. When we are curious, we approach the world with a childlike habit of poking, prodding and asking questions. We are attracted to new experiences. Rather than pursuing an agenda or a desired set of answers, we follow our questions where they lead.

Socially, curiosity lets us really listen to other people because we want to know who they are. We open ourselves to the knowledge and experience they can share with us. We relish having discoveries of our own to share.

Are the members of your team curious? More importantly, do you think curiosity is an important attribute for a person to have?

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention,” if people don’t have a strong sense of curiosity, wonder and interest, it’s pretty tough to recognize an interesting problem.

But exactly what are necessary traits to first recognize and then wrestle with a problem effectively? He advises in his book to always be open to new experiences and have a fluid attention that constantly processes things from the environment. Without this kind of interest, the author says it’s hard to get to the crux of a problem and then push beyond what is already known to solve it in a creative way.

Managers should strive to evoke curiosity and a passion for knowledge in workers, who will likely respond by becoming immersed in solving the company’s problems creatively.

The best way to empower your employees is to ask questions that spur their curiosity and creativity.

-- Challenge the conventional wisdom. Ask questions that move people away from the tried-and-true and help them think more creatively. For example: “What if we give our product away to every 10th caller on Tuesdays?”

-- Change the perspective. Pose questions that take a higher view of a problem and encourage people to think of the long term or the broader implications. “How will this change affect the competition? What will happen to the marketplace as a result?”

-- Include the entire organization. Frame questions that address the needs of your organization and the people in it. “If we eliminate unnecessary paperwork, what will happen in the accounting department?”

-- Spur excitement. Ask questions that get people excited about possibilities and potential (and not afraid of the price of failure). “Do you see any reason why we shouldn’t put this idea into action right away?”

Curiosity goes far beyond the what-ifs -- but that’s the best place to start?

Mackay’s Moral: The only question that doesn’t have an answer is the one that is not asked.